We're moving!

So I haven't been very faithful posting lately. Like, at all. I finally decided I needed to post again, pictures or no, just as an update. Hopefully someday I'll have time to take pictures and show you what's up! But I just don't seem to have any spare time whatsoever these days.

But for now, we have sold our home. In three short weeks we need to be out of our house. We have looked high and low for another place to buy, and God has just not opened the doors. So while we wait and hunt, we will be living a mobile lifestyle in a 39' travel trailer. The kids are SUPER excited as we prepare to condense our 3 level house into a camper. We're slightly less excited, knowing it won't all be easy, but life is an adventure and we'll take it! We have a couple of different options for where we'll be parking during the weekdays, but during weekends we'll be trying out various campgrounds and enjoying not having a huge project looming over our heads like we've had in the last 3 years since this house arrived.

Our new home the day we picked it up.

This camper has two sets of bunkbeds in the the front, and a master bedroom in the back with the living space between. It has two slide outs, so that helps tremendously with the space. I'll be posting more pictures once I have a few spare minutes of breathing space!

House for sale!

Yes, it finally officially up for sale! Not officially finished, as there are still a spot or two that need a touch of paint and a pane of glass to be replaced on a warm day, but our purposes it's done enough to be for sale. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. One of these days I hope to compile all the before and after photos to one post so you can see how far we've come. Meanwhile, it's time to finish cleaning... and trying to keep things clean in an already muddy "spring" with 4 little children who vacillate between the great outdoors and the comfy indoors. Well, all except the littlest, but she is already learning how to keep Mama busy!

Speaking of Candice, she is growing and is maturing at an incredible speed. She lost a little time at the beginning of January when she was dealing with teething and an ear infection at the same time, but now she is trying valiantly to make up for it all she can. She has SEVEN teeth in already! After spending a good portion of the day eating to make up for lost time, she spends her time crawling around the floors and pulling up on anything she can get a handle on, which is leading to trouble already. Mostly yet having to watch that what she's pulling up on won't land on her head as did a wooden stool and a laundry basket yesterday, but it won't be long and we'll be having to rescue things from her little grip! At only 6 months old, we think she's pretty impressive.

The last of our litter of puppies went to his new home yesterday, but we replaced the puppies with a brood of new chicks who will become our laying hens. Never a dull moment around here. Ever. The laying hens we do have are starting to pick up their laying again now that things are warming up around here, which we're very glad for! And it's almost time to wean last summer's calves so the mamas can fatten up for their new babies this spring. And for other news around the farm, I have also started some seedlings in preparation for the garden this spring. We'll see how fast the house sells as to if I ever actually get to enjoy the fruit of my labors, but it's worth a try at least!

Back in late summer we purchased 2 wrecked vehicles and had Jere's brother fix them for us, intending to sell one and use the funds from that to pay off the other. Well, after driving them both some through the winter we decided they weren't for us (or maybe I should say I didn't care for them at all) and have been working at selling them both. We finally sold the one last week, and so are beginning to keep our eyes open for our next family vehicle. I'm looking forward to settling down in to one vehicle again!

So it seems life has a way of keeping us hopping! If anyone would like to volunteer to come help me clean house I'm taking applications...

6 months old! And wintertime stories...

I can't hardly believe our baby is 6 months old already. And what a big bundle of joy she is! Though I must admit the last month has had its challenges. Starting out the month with a cold wasn't fun, but then about the time she got over the cold she started crying at night. A LOT. I attributed it to teeth, of which she had 2 and three more on the way in. But one morning she woke up with ear drainage, so we took her to the clinic and here she'd had an ear infection, complete with a ruptured ear drum! No signs at all--no fever, no pulling at her ear, only the very explainable crying at night. She's been doing better since then, despite poking two more teeth though and one more start swelling. For a total of 4 teeth in and two almost. Yes, she is ahead of schedule! As is usual for her. The official report from the clinic, a week before she turned 6 months, was she weighed in at 20 pounds, and was 26 inches long.

Over the past month Candice's physical abilities have been blooming as well. She is ever so close to crawling, easily crawling backwards with reciprocal motion, and has gone forward just a bit a time or two. She rolls both ways, and pushed up to sitting. Using all these modes of movement, she travels quite a bit! And gets herself stuck. Thankfully she has big brothers who love to help her out!

Our winter is a real Wisconsin winter. Which is different than a real northern MN winter, which makes it hard for me when people are fussing about the "blizzard" we had recently. I didn't see any blizzard, just for the record. (Nevermind we probably couldn't get out the driveway right now even with the truck due to blowing snow...) But anyway, I'm happy with the winter we are having! We have enough snow to make it fun to have an all wheel drive vehicle, and it's not super cold, barely getting below zero. The children all have been thoroughly enjoying sledding, skating, and making a snowman. I'm so grateful it's warm enough for them to enjoy the snow, AND that they're all big enough to pretty much bundle themselves up!

We have been busily getting our house finished. Almost there, and it's such a joy to see final details being nailed in place. To see pictures of the rooms as they're getting finished you can check out my photo album here. I put new pictures in it as we get each room done. Hopefully we'll have a few more to add by the end of the week!

Another project we have going at the moment is another adorable litter of Alaskan Malamute puppies. We have 7, and they are all sold. Two more weeks and they should be gone! We enjoy them, but it will be nice to have our chores cut down on again.

Now for the REAL 2015 family photos!

Blessings from the Hege family in 2016!

And here are a couple more photos for good measure:

Family photo--2015

Hope you had a wonderful 2015 and that your 2015 is blessed!

The many faces of Eliott

When I needed to go get some idea of how the lighting would work for our family photo, this little fellow volunteered to be my subject. I think he's a pretty cute one, what about you?!!!

Christmas happenings

So, here are a few pictures from our Christmas preparations and celebrations. We spent days making cookies to pass out when we went Christmas caroling for friends and neighbors, and the children sure had fun decorating them!

Saying goodbye to Grandma before she left for Mexico for the winter.

Cutting out Gingerbread Boys (and girls, and snowmen!)

Decorating the cut-out cookies--we had some very interesting concoctions of sprinkles! But of course they were all beautiful in the eyes of their beholders.

More decorating.

Candice's first Christmas gift--a dolly from her indulgent brothers and sister.

The boys were just too excited with their new Lego Technic kits.

Of course I have to throw in an extra one of the sweet baby!

The children conspired to draw lots and lots of pictures to give their beloved Daddy. They used scrap papers, and drew with so much love. What a precious gift!

And Leanna got a Calico Critters dollhouse! She has had SO much fun with that thing!

We were blessed with a white Christmas at the very last minute. Christmas Eve it started to snow, and we got a couple of inches! The next post will contain some of those pictures...